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Poughkeepsie Journal

Final arguments are now on record for the state’s Public Service Commission to mull as it decides whether to let Fortis Inc. of Canada buy Central Hudson Gas & Electric Corp.

That record’s rhetoric was amping up in Friday’s formal filings by the companies and other parties to the case before the commission, which meets June 13 and may then decide whether the deal will create a net public benefit.

The commission’s own professional staff backs a deal they helped to improve, but the commission’s administrative law judges say the deal won’t fly. This final round of legal briefs stems from the “recommended decision” by those judges.

One filing, by the Public Utility Law Project, a consumer group, defended the judges putting weight on the negative public outcry that erupted this spring, and castigated Fortis and Central Hudson for trying to marginalize it.

Public Utility Law Project Executive Director Gerry Norlander accused the companies of “scorn for the public” and wrote, “Petitioners attempt to divert from the legitimate concerns the public expressed to give the impression of a confused and manipulated populace unworthy of consideration, and their slanderous attacks on concerned citizens is an affront to democratic participation in quasi-legislative regulatory proceedings.”

He said the vaunted $50 million in consumer benefits doesn’t outweigh the risks of turning the mid-Hudson utility company over to a Canadian holding company. He said treating money as a “soothing panacea to cure all ills” was “encouraging and institutionalizing soft bribery through short-term inducements to stakeholders to go along with decisions which will pose unmitigated risks for future generations in a post-acquisition holding company regime.”

Fortis and Central Hudson disputed claims by the Public Utility Law Project and Citizens for Local Power that the deal poses long-term fiscal risk to consumers.

The companies said there would be no ill effect from Fortis paying more than book value for CH Energy.

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The companies said credit ratings since the agreement show no such effects and that if they occurred, they would hit Fortis’ shareholders, not Central Hudson’s customers.

The companies said the claim that Fortis’ slightly lower credit rating is a problem is misplaced.

Fortis BC Energy Inc., Fortis’ largest subsidiary, has a high rating similar to Central Hudson’s, which shows “that Fortis’ operating utility subsidiaries can and do maintain strong, stand-alone debt ratings that are independent” of Fortis, according to the companies.

But Citizens for Local Power attorney Daniel Duthie wrote, “What is true is that Fortis needs Central Hudson a heck of a lot more than Central Hudson needs Fortis. Fortis was on a downgrade watch until it announced this deal. The only reason that Central Hudson is considering this transaction is because of the immediate direct cash benefit to its senior management.”

While the record for comments from the general public formally closed May 1, they still roll in to the commission’s website.

Jeffrey Senft, head of S&O Construction Services in Pleasant Valley, wrote favorably about benefits of the deal, including Fortis’ assumption of $35 million in storm costs and “substantive benefit to our job development efforts.”